“I don’t do it very often, but I don’t see why not.”
Jay led him toward a door set in the southern wall. Taking a key from a hook he unlocked it and they stepped through. Dubhe stooped and nibbled several blades of grass from between his fingers.
“Tastes like grass, too,” he said. “Maybe there’s not that much difference.”
“Can’t spread my arms and fly here, or walk into the ocean and breathe under water.”
“Is that really so important?”
Jay moved to an iron gate set in a fence, opened it, passed inside.
“What’s this?” Dubhe asked.
“Family cemetery,” Jay said. “That’s my mom’s grave and that’s my dad’s.”
Dubhe pointed upward.
“Jay! What’s going on?”
Jay raised his head. One of those odd old pieces of equipment mounted on the wall had suddenly begun to glow with a violet aura. “I don’t know what—” he began.
The bracelet vibrated.
“Son! Get back to the office fast!” it called. “Don’t wait to lock doors! Run!”
Jay turned and ran. Dubhe followed. The air before them swam with moire.
“What’s going on?” he said.
“I don’t know,” Dubhe responded.
“What’s the stuff in the air?”
“Moire—the sign of Death,” Dubhe answered as they entered the castle.
Jay felt his hair rising and saw that Dubhe’s was also. As they pounded up the stairs the glowing units in the outer walls began to sing.
“What’s going on?” Dubhe asked.
“I don’t know. I’ve never seen anything like it before. You at least know what the moire is,” Jay said, rubbing his eyes.
“The older you get, the more you learn of such matters, brother Jay—and they’re saddening. Ordinarily, you see them right before you die, if you live in Virtu.”
“I don’t feel like dying today,” said Jay, rounding another corner and racing on toward the office. He heard something like a soft chuckle then.
There was a crackling sound in the air, and the moire faded as they entered the office.
“Bracelet!” he called out. “What now?”
“Black box on table near main desk,” came the reply. “Light indicator should be on. Third dial from right. Turn it all the way clockwise.”
Jay sprang forward.
“Done!” he cried.
A crackling sound came from beyond the walls.
“There’s a small switch jury-rigged, on the rear table leg. Throw it!”
“Okay. What is it?”
“Extra generator.”
A display appeared on the screen of one main unit on the central workbench. It was a head shrouded within a dark cowl, the face pale, shadowed. “Hello,” it said.
Jay felt Dubhe duck behind him.
“Fast on your feet, boy,” the figure continued.
Jay tried to meet its dark gaze, failed.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“An old associate of your father’s,” came the reply.
“What do you want?”
“You.”
“Why?”
“You were given to me before your birth.”
“I can’t believe that.”
“Ask the coward who hides behind you.”
“Dubhe, is this true?”
“Well—uh—yes.”
“How do you know this?”
“I was there when the arrangement was made.”
“Why was it made?”
“You may tell him of it some time,” said the shadowy figure on the screen. “Right now he needs to know where the equities lie.”
“Well, where do they?” asked Jay.
“You have been mine all along,” said the other. “But I did not take you when I took your father because of an eloquent plea he’d made for your continued existence. Just now, though, when you left yourself unguarded, I felt that much of my word had been kept—and I decided to reach for you and test your response. How did you know what to do?”
Jay heard Dubhe whisper then, “Don’t tell him of the bracelet.” Aloud, then, the monkey said, “I thought how his father fought you for his life, years ago.”
“When did you hear that?”
“I’ve a feeling I shouldn’t say.”
“Hie you home now, Dubhe. We’ve matters to discuss.”
“Alas, sir. I cannot.”
“What do you mean? Why not?”
“I seem to have been translated and become a creature of the Verite. I cannot come to you. I seem to have lost the way.”
“Somehow, this is old Donnerjack’s doing, isn’t it?”
“I do not know, sir.”
“—Managed by the boy.”
Dubhe glanced at Jay, who nodded and smiled.
“Your father did not best me,” the figure said then. “It was only a draw.”
“Best two out of three?” said the boy.
The cowled figure simply stared, then said, “I’m dropping the siege. I’ll give you a few more years. I’ve a feeling the damage is already done. I fail to understand the fascination life holds for you Donnerjacks, though.”
“Who are you?” the boy repeated.
“You know me. Everybody knows me,” he said. “Goodbye for now.”
The screen grew darker. Jay Donnerjack felt his hair settling as the projectors turned themselves down, and then, finally, off.
“Tell me about him,” Jay said.
“That was the Lord of Deep Fields,” Dubhe replied.
Jay frowned. “What is your connection with him?” he asked.
“He likes a little company. I was one of the ones he kept around to chat with on occasion. He even sweetens the pot by giving us a little power to keep us happy in that strange place.”
“That strange place?”
“Deep Fields.”
“You actually dwelled there?”
“Well—yes.”
“Did he ask you to keep an eye on me?”
Dubhe looked away.
“Yeah. He did sort of mention it.”
“Which side are you on anyway? Where do you go when you leave here?”
“Well, I can’t go back now. Your power prohibits it. I had no idea you could bring me to Verite and, in effect, bar my return to Deep Fields. It would be fun to see him try to break that power.”
“What are you going to do, now?”
“Hang out with you, I guess, if you’ll let me.”
“So you can spy on me some more?”
“That wasn’t what I had in mind. I think he’s thrown me out.”
“So you need a new place to run to?”
“In a word, yes. But unless he snatches me away for dust, I think I could teach you a lot. I’ve learned something of his ways.”
“I think I can send you back.”
“Not now! Not while he’s pissed! Please!”
“All right. I’d like someone to chat with, too. Give me a break. If you ever want to go back, tell me first.”
“Oh, I will! I promise!”
“The hell with your promise. Your word is sufficient.”
“Oh, that, too!”
“Okay, we take care of each other then.”
“Okay, but bear in mind that neither of us is really a match for the Lord of Deep Fields.”
Jay chuckled.
“Hungry?”
“Yes. And I’ve never tried Verite food.”
“First time for everything,” said Jay.
* * *
John D’Arcy Donnerjack, Junior crouched on the parapet beside a particularly ugly waterspout of a gargoyle. Recently, he had begun the study of gymnastics. And while he loved his rock-climbing in Virtu, he had been quick to see the possibilities of the rugged structure of the castle itself. Sometimes he would look out over the village, up into the mountains, and toward the sea. On other occasions he regarded glorious mixes of rainbow, cloud, and mist, patches of sunlight. Wheneve
r his nimble figure was spotted from the town below it added to the notion that the castle was haunted. On dimmer days he was unseen. He seldom ventured out upon the walls at night.
A mist blew in from the sea, and off in the distance he could see a storm rising. Some of the fishing vessels were already tagged by the winds, and white combers now rolled the beaches. The stones grew damp about him. He was startled by the beauty of the moment and loath to return indoors.
“You want to do Deep Fields’ work for them?” Dubhe called from an open window below. “It’s not getting any less slippery out there.”
“I know,” Jay responded. Yet still he lingered. “You should see this sky,” he said.
“I can see it from here!”
“And feel the wind.”
“Another thing to keep the troubleshooters trying! Get back in here!”
“All right! All right!”
Jay swung back down and in through the window.
“Don’t turn into an old lady,” he told Dubhe.
“I’m not, but consider—you’re my only safe link with the world. What would I do if you smashed yourself, put an ad in the paper? ‘Small, versatile ape seeks employment in Virtu or Verite. Lots of experience with demons, entropy, and old coots. Expert bartender.’ “
“It might be better to go with an agency,” Jay said, “and assume whatever appearance you want, for Virtu.”
“I’m a little afraid of that.”
“I could try to switch you back, full-time.”
“Wish you could just teach me the trick for going back and forth.”
“Wish I knew how.”
“Death has a piece of the trick,” Dubhe said, “but I doubt he has all of it. Too bad there’s no way you could create a hidden gate just the two of us know about.”
Jay studied him carefully.
“What if that is already the case?” he asked.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, supposing the servant of a dark enemy of my father’s were to have made friends with me in a form very congenial to a kid—that they become playmates first. And I tried and succeeded in bringing you across in your guise. I could already have done half of what you are asking. I wonder…”
He looked a trifle nervous.
“You’re partly right,” Dubhe finally said. “But it was my idea, not his—and I hadn’t the time to tell him what I wanted to try.”
“So you might say the thought just passed through your head.”
“Yeah. It was tempting.”
“Tempting… or testing. He didn’t try very hard after I got back into Dad’s office.”
“What do you mean? He battered the place! I thought we were lost.”
“Did he? He got through to take my mother. It can’t be a coincidence that she died within a few days of my birth. My father died prematurely, so we can argue that the Lord of Deep Fields got through to him, too.”
Dubhe grunted, noncommittal, but he recalled what he had heard of an earlier siege of Castle Donnerjack and as he recalled he shivered and wrapped his thin, spidery arms around himself.
“It seems that the Lord of Deep Fields can penetrate my father’s defenses,” Jay continued his musing. “He may need to make an effort, but he can do it.”
Dubhe shivered again. “I don’t nearly feel as safe as I did a moment ago.”
“Nothing has changed,” said Jay, in the hard, cool manner he sometimes fell into.
“No, I suppose not,” Dubhe said, looking around, “but it sure feels like it has.”
Jay grinned, wholly a boy again. He bent and hugged the monkey, his arms easily enfolding the skinny form.
“You’ve been growing,” Dubhe commented when the boy let him go. “I remember when we were nearly the same size.”
“It happens.”
“Not always in Virtu.”
“C’mon, Dubhe. Let’s go see if Cookie will give us some ice cream. I’m famished.”
Dubhe stood, his knuckles dragging against the floor.
“Okay. I guess if the Lord of Deep Fields is coming, there’s nothing I can do about it and I’ve always wanted to have ice cream.”
Donnerjack laughed and led the way. Behind them, in the office of John D’Arcy Donnerjack, Senior the computer monitor flickered, showing a skull. Its grin was omnipresent, its laughter harsh and full of triumph.
FOUR
Perhaps it was inevitable that the time would come when John D’Arcy Donnerjack, Junior would encounter the Church of Elish. As Reese Jordan had said, a boy could not be kept from doing what he wanted once he had set his mind on it and Jay Donnerjack, for all the ways that he differed from most boys, was a true boy in this. However, he had attended to Reese’s reasoning when the old man advised him to avoid human society and, his awareness of mortality honed by the battle he had observed between Chumo and Sayjak, he set himself a compromise.
First, he would only observe, not participate—at least at first. Second, he would go in virt disguise, not by crossing the interface. Third, he would go only to those sites that were open to public access, not to anywhere he had to pay. In this way he would leave no electronic trail that could be followed.
This last resolve was easy to keep for he had no money of his own. The Donnerjack Institute maintained the castle through arrangements made before John Senior’s death. Within the castle, the boy wanted for nothing. With the equipment John Senior had installed as his access point into Virtu he need not pay transfer station fees. Since he was not to contact human society, but to restrict his adventuring to the vast wild sites, he was never issued eft tokens, nor was an account set up for him to draw upon as was usual.
Jay understood money in abstract. His education had included examples of money exchanged for goods, but he did not really comprehend it, nor did he understand its potential power. Therefore, he did not feel his loss particularly strongly, except as a blockade to his explorations and, as there was much he could explore without payment, he only rarely considered his lack.
Ironically, his first solo venture into human society was into a casino site. The traditional lures were in use here as they had been long before in Verite. Elaborate virt structures harbored a variety of gambling games. Shows and spectaculars tempted the gamblers to remain.
Initially, Jay was fascinated by the mobs of people, but this fascination wore off quickly. The passion for spending and acquiring eft tokens left him indifferent. His vocabulary grew somewhat, as did his knowledge of the variety of ways people could be convinced to risk their money in an effort to gain more, but that was all.
He planned somewhat better the next time, choosing a public vacation resort. Here he strolled the beaches, joined in an occasional contest of skill (all of which he took care to lose, although in many cases he was the clear victor), and observed the people. Here, however, the people were often disguised in holiday personas. They were too beautiful, too strong, too flawless to be real, and so their appeal swiftly palled.
After several more false starts, he discovered that religious gatherings provided him with what he had been seeking. Many of them were open to the public—at least at their novice levels. Although some participants wore virt personas, the vast majority came as themselves. At first, Jay simply feasted his gaze on the variety—not just of race or fashion, but of mannerism, posture, and bearing. Until he studied the congregations, he had not realized how many ways there were to rejoice or mourn, how much variation there was within the human animal. A small part of him hungered to see the Verite itself, but for now he was content—more than content, even—sated.
When he could tear himself away from studying the crowd, Jay listened to the sermons and prayers. In an effort to understand the themes that were being expounded, on his return to Castle Donnerjack, he read voraciously. The various religions’ treatments of the metaphysical issues of life, death, afterlife, reward, and punishment fed a portion of his maturing psyche that had been sadly starved.
The robots who had raised
him either did not care about such issues or—in case of the more sophisticated models such as Dack—had interpretations that focused on their particular form of life. Jay’s virt playmates had rather stringently avoided questions of life and death, and Reese Jordan had lived so long beyond the normal human span that his own take on the issues could not be communicated to a boy young enough to be his great-great-grandson, no matter how brilliant that boy might be.
And so Jay attended Catholic Mass, presided over by the Pope in real-time virt persona. He sat hushed as an electronic bodisatva explained the nature of maya—that illusion was not a matter merely of appearance, but of perception. He danced at a voudon ceremony, but none of the loa selected to ride him.
Islam had retained its exclusivity regarding those who were infidels, but there were educational services for those who were interested in learning about the teaching of Mohammed. Jay listened to many of these lectures. The brutal logic of jihad had a certain appeal, a directness not often found, but Jay was already too widely read to believe that one answer could do for all people.
And, almost by accident, he found the Church of Elish. For some months he had been regularly attending a Jewish outreach program. He enjoyed the slow, thoughtful discussions of the Torah, of the application of the various laws and proscriptions to the modern day. (Did one sin against the prohibition against eating pork if one only ate virtual pork? Did one commit murder if the murder was within the confines of a virtual setting and the victim a proge created for that purpose? Did one fall into adultery if one had intercourse with a proge created as a virtual representation of another man’s wife?) He rarely spoke up, but listened carefully and took notes for later meditation.
Leaving a meeting one afternoon, he overheard two members discussing an absent third.
“And where is Ruth today?”
“Hadn’t you heard? She’s gone over to the Elshies.”
“The Elshies? Whatever for?”
“It seems that all our discussions of how to apply the old ways to the new circumstances made her decide that the only faith that might have answers for today was the Church of Elish.”
“Because they claim it was founded in Virtu?”
“That’s right.”
“I think that it’s just a marketing scam. The religion of ancient Sumer has been dead and gone for millennia. Why would it be reborn in virt?”
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